Items tagged with MSI

Do you even VR, bro? That seems to be the question the computer industry at large is interested in asking, as there is a concerted effort to push VR gaming and experiences as the next big thing. It's coming from all directions, even system makers, hence the Trident from MSI. The Trident is a "complete and ready-to-go gaming system" that's being pitched as the world's smallest VR gaming desktop. Perhaps a year a go this thing would have been considered a Steam Machine, and before that it would be called an HTPC with gaming chops or simply a PC gaming console. That doesn't mean the VR moniker is...Read more...

MSI definitely got our attention with the unveil of its VR One gaming backpack. Traditional PC-based VR systems like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require you to be tethered to your desktop or laptop, which limits your ability to freely interact with a virtual environment. The MSI VR One bucks that trend by essentially strapping a fully functional, high-end gaming rig to your back, allowing you to freely roam while gaming. Up until this point, we were privy to the specifications of the VR One, but we had no clue how much it would cost. Now, the numbers are in and they’re staggering. The MSI One...Read more...

Rivet Networks recently announced its latest Killer networking product, the Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller. For the uninitiated, the very first Killer Networking cards were introduced way back in 2005 and were designed to maximize throughput and minimize ping times for gamers. While total throughput is often similar between network controllers today, Killer networking products reckon they can still deliver a superior experience through improved ping times and quality-of-service (QoS) prioritization.While the Killer lineup has shifted hands a time or two, from Bigfoot Networks to Qualcomm...Read more...

Although rumors had been circulating for a while, NVIDIA went ahead and made the GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti official last week with an announcement featuring a number of details about the cards. In the announcement, NVIDIA covered some of the speeds and feeds, revealed a number of partner board designs, and revealed expected pricing. Performance, however, was not discussed. Today we’re able to tell all, with a trio of GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti cards from MSI and EVGA. We’ve got two cards from MSI – in both plain vanilla and Ti flavors – along with an EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti...Read more...

We have another premium Z170-based motherboard on the test bench today, by way of MSI. The MSI Z170A Gaming M9 ACK motherboard is the company’s top end gaming board for use with Intel 6th Generation Skylake-based Core series processors. The MSI Z170A Gaming M9 is packed with a host of premium features aimed at improving and enhancing your experience. Like most gaming enthusiast boards, this one also commands top dollar, but still manages to ring in $100 shy of the wallet-busting ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII we previously reviewed. Some of the more notable features on this motherboard include a built-in...Read more...

A good rule of thumb when purchasing a gaming laptop is to buy one with the fastest GPU you can afford. Unlike desktop PCs, you usually can't rip out the graphics adapter and upgrade to something faster (not in most cases, anyway), so when that once shiny and fast laptop starts feeling a little sluggish, you're looking at dialing down in-game settings until you've saved enough scratch to buy a new laptop. That's an expensive proposition (it's called throwing the baby out with the bath water), but if gaming on the go is what you're after, you don't have much choice in the matter.That's still the...Read more...

Virtual Reality (VR) is the “next big thing” in the gaming arena, and MSI is delving into the market feet first with the world’s first VR backpack. Dubbed the VR One, MSI bills the device as the thinnest and lightest backpack PC system ever made. While VR systems like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift traditionally leave you tethered to your desktop (or laptop) with wires, the VR One gives you complete freedom to walk around and fully interact with your virtual environment with ease. MSI describes the VR One as having a “futuristic robot machine style” and we won’t disagree with that assertion. If you’ve...Read more...

NVIDIA just announced a new, cheaper variant of its Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card. While the standard GTX 1060 comes with 6GB of memory and retails for $249, NVIDIA is launching a 3GB variant that costs just $199. All other specs remain the same, which means that you’ll find 1152 CUDA cores, a base clock of 1506MHz, a boost clock of 1708MHz, a 192-bit memory interface and a TDP of 120 watts. NVIDIA does note, however, that the GTX 1060 6GB is on average about 5 percent faster than its new 3GB counterpart. On the other hand, NVIDIA is also quick to point out that the GTX 1060 3GB is...Read more...

The folks at NVIDIA have gone and done a bad thing. By building mobile versions of Pascal, they've went and rendered all of us with a previous generation gaming laptop suddenly feeling inadequate with our hardware and wanting for an upgrade. Seriously, check out these benchmarks we ran. The good news is notebook makers are starting to roll out laptops based on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 10 series GPU, including MSI, which is excited as we are about Pascal. "NVIDIA’s GTX 10 Series GPU ushers a new era of mobile gaming where mind-blowing visual performance is no longer restricted to desktops, and VR is...Read more...

There’s no question that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is a beastly graphics chip. Marco reviewed the graphics card back in mid-May and praised its stellar performance and relatively low power consumption compared to the competition. For the most part, we’ve mainly seen air-cooled versions of the GeForce GTX 1080 make their way to the market, but Corsair has just announced a new card for water-cooling enthusiasts. Corsair worked in conjunction with MSI to introduce the Hydro GFX GTX 1080. The graphics card features a Hydro Series H55 cooler mounted on the GPU along with a fully-sealed liquid cooling...Read more...

If you’ve already read Marco’s excellent analysis of the GeForce GTX 1060, then you know that NVIDIA has produced a compelling graphics card for the mainstream market that offers respectable performance and extremely low power consumption (and if you haven’t read the review, you can find it here). And following the official reveal of a new GeForce card came a flurry of announcements from NVIDIA’s graphics partners; all of which are looking corner the market with multiple variants catering to the widest pool of gamers. So far, we’ve seen numerous entries from ASUS, MSI, EVGA and Gigabyte (among...Read more...

Hot on the heels of AMD releasing its first Polaris part, the Radeon RX 480, its hardware partners are finalizing customized cards that sport factory overclocks and custom cooling solutions that help the cards run chillier and quieter than stock. Two that have just been announced include the ASUS ROG Strix RX 480 and the MSI Radeon RX 480 8G Gaming X. Before we dive into these custom cards, let's talk a moment about the Radeon RX 480. If you haven't done so already, check out our full review with plenty of benchmarks and analysis. Short and to the point, we declared the first Polaris part from...Read more...

ASUS and MSI came under fire last week when reviewers discovered that both were shipping graphics cards to hardware reviewers that featured higher than expected clock speeds. While most of us wouldn’t mind receiving a product that performs better than stock from the factory, the problem arises from the fact that this configuration is different from what general consumers that purchased the exact same cards received. In MSI’s case, cards were shipping to reviewers with OC Mode engaged, which cranks up the GPU clock to 1708 MHz and sets GPU boost to 1847 MHz. Cards shipping to consumers are set by...Read more...

Multiple websites are claiming to have received graphics cards from ASUS and MSI with jacked up clockspeeds that are higher than the ones shipping to consumers by default. Known as review samples, it's not uncommon to see slight deviations from the final product when reviewers get their hands on parts before they've launched to retail, but the insinuation here is that ASUS and MSI are gaming the review process to give their cards an edge over the competition. This isn't a black and white situation. The folks at TechPowerUp noticed that something was amiss with MSI's GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X card,...Read more...